You have provided everything this person needs and wants.  You have compromised until you cannot recognize your original position.  You are exhausted trying to find the acceptable solution.

Sound familiar?

If you are working with or for someone who seems impervious to reason or common sense, I have four suggestions.

First, decide what is “too much” to give away.  The last thing you want to do is craft an agreement that leaves you destitute.  Take a sheet of paper and write at the top, “Unacceptable Solutions.”  Fill in the page with all the outcomes you cannot live with in the future.

Second, move from your position to a common interest.  What is a “shared interest” the two of you have to resolve this issue?  Persuade the other person to move into negotiations which provide “mutual gain.”  

Mutual gain is the way to steer away from the finger-pointing and table-thumping.  If the other person sees there is something in resolving this issue for him/her, the potential for resolution is increased.

Third, when presenting your position, be specific about the benefits to the other person.  You have to list them.  Make sure these are realistic.  If your rhetoric is couched in, “You will love these recommendations,” be prepared for push-back.

Do not tell the other person what he/she will like.  Always provide choices (acceptable to you) that use linguistic formula and may include, “I am proposing these solutions for you to consider. I am convinced both of them have merit.  What do you think?”

Fourth, go back to number one.  After you get into the negotiation process, what part of what once was “unacceptable” can you trade for a lasting remedy?  I often find when faced with an eternal “impasse,” I am willing to accept “half a loaf” than to…starve.

If you cannot please the other person…turn your attention to a mirror.

Stonewalling is often the face of frozen fear.

All of life is negotiable.

If you have heard the name, Gary Hamel, you will know why I am so enthusiastic about this month’s book recommendation.

The Future of Management (2007, ISBN:  13:978-1-4221-0250-3) is a great follow-up to Hamel’s 2002 best-seller, Leading the Revolution.

Gary Hamel is Visiting Professor of Strategic and International Management at the London Business School and the cofounder of Strategos, an international consulting firm.

I am the first one to admit Hamel got it wrong in Leading the Revolution when he extolled Enron as a model for the future of corporations.  At the same time, he admitted his error and has, as an educator, owned his misread of this fallen giant.  

In The Future of Management, Hamel trains his amazing insight on present corporate leadership who have “created a community of purpose” and “built an innovation democracy.”  I am always intrigued by his scholarship and interpretive powers.  This book will kick out the boundaries of your mind as you define your own management strategies in a threatening future.

New Free Article

When you read the headlines, you know there may be fewer of your coworkers in the workplace tomorrow.  “Downsizing” has made a comeback.

If you are in a managerial position and will have to trim your employment rolls, you may find help in my latest free article, “How About Respect on the Way to Showing Someone the Door?”  

Performing the odious reduction-in-force is not the theme of my treatise; how you terminate is the focus.  

No one likes or looks forward to this management responsibility in bad times.  This article will provide practical and caring ways of walking someone out the door.

To read and print out this article go to www.execenrichment.com, choose “Downloadable Resources” and then select “Articles.”  Please provide written approbation if you are using my writing in an organizational publication.

My 2009 Calendar

If you are planning a professional meeting, retreat, leadership training or any other event when you need a presenter who gives people a good time in the process of dishing out credible content, give me a call or reply to this LeMonAide and I will immediately contact you.  I am presently filling up my 2009 calendar and would enjoy the opportunity to work with you.

My Yellow Journalism

Children are walking, riding bikes, getting in your private vehicle and climbing the steps of a yellow school bus to get to school each day.  I wrote a book several years ago that will be of interest to you if you want to know if the venerable yellow school bus is the safest way to transport your child to and from school.  My research will surprise you!

Unreported Miracles (What You Probably do not Know about Your Child’s School Bus) is available by contacting our office with a reply to this LeMonAide.  The price is $15.00 which includes postage and handling.

Like you, the only emotion I have been experiencing as I have watched the economic news is…anger.

Yes, I know all my investments have been risks.  I continue to believe they are “acceptable risks,” but doubt continues to make a command performance between my ears and is starting to eek into my heart.

You know what I am doing.  I am looking for someone to blame.

In all honesty, I am the guilty one.  And, I am not alone.

With my eyes wide open and 50 years of Wall Street graphs in the background, I knew there would always be ups and downs when purchasing equities.  So, this is a “down market” and I am screaming all the way to economic hell.

No one talked me into these investments and there was no gun to my head.  I did the deed.

What I have learned is, regardless of one’s age, stuff happens and we have to wrap our arms around the “stuff.”  Ownership is the name of this game.

So, I have committed myself to ride this out.  Like all decisions in life there has always been “second guessing.”  I have looked twice, three times and a million times and I am in the dock and find myself guilty of rolling the dice and…temporarily losing.

And, I don’t think I am alone.

Here are behaviors you may want to check, along with your luggage, on your next flight.

3,117 U.S. airline passengers in a survey conducted by TripAdvisor’s annual Travel Trends collected these strong opinions about the growing unfriendly skies.

**80% thought cell phones should be banned in flight while 69% wanted wireless internet.

**71% believe families with small children should be in their own section of the plane.

**The number one irritant for adults was a child kicking the back of a seat.  

**24% said they would never fly again if airlines started to charge for a ticket by one’s weight.

Carry this list with you on your next flight.

If you would like to personally meet with me during the months of October or November, here is my schedule.  Please call 800-373-4040 to set up an appointment.

There are three words you need to edit out of your writing.  These are “filler words” we have learned can inflate an English writing assignment past the required 500 words.  The problem is, we are still trying to impress people with the number, not quality of our words.

The first is “there.”  

Look at this sentence, “In the past there were few politicians who could be trusted.”  Try it again without “there” and it would read, “In the past few politicians could be trusted.”  Do you notice “there” is normally part of the helping verb “to be” which is unnecessary?

The second is “that.”  

“That” is a non-descriptive pronoun which falls in the “garbage bin” of English grammar.  Look at this sentence, “We think that shorter sentences are better.”  Now, take out “that” and the sentence reads, “We think shorter sentences are better.”  When you eliminate “that,” in most sentences, you will not change the meaning.

The third is “who.”  

“Who,” as you know, is a pronoun in the subjective case.  Look at the unnecessary use of this pronoun in this sentence, “Cal, who is my executive coach, regularly contacts me.”  I am using an appositive (descriptive phrase or clause) in this sentence and I can subtract “who” by composing the sentence this way, “Cal, my executive coach, regularly contacts me.”

I think that I am finished (what is the unnecessary word?).

When meeting with a client in a conference room, take a moment to assess the seating arrangement.

I recently was preparing for consulting work with a particular client and I arranged to meet members of the senior management team in a conference room. This location had a prodigious conference table perfectly positioned in the center of the room.

When I was shown to the room, I put my notebook, pen and cup of coffee in the chair…at the head of the table.

My first appointment was with the CEO.

Guess what I learned?  It was Goldilocks redux, “Who has been sitting in my chair?”

If you are a guest, always select a chair on the side of a conference table and do not make your first order of business deciding who is going to take the “power position.”

The written prayers in this section are Cal’s divine conversations reflecting the needs others have shared with him.

Forty percent is just…gone!  That’s forty percent of my net worth!

Oh, Lord.  I cannot watch Jim Cramer, Suzie Orman or any other “expert” right now.  They have all been wrong.

No, we need to talk.  I mean, You need to talk.  I need some peace right now.

With retirement just a few years away, this should not be happening.  I shutter and stutter when I think about what I have lost on The Street.

I know You cannot change numbers on a printout, but I’m open to any walking on water today.

Lord, I am looking for a place to stand.  This should not be happening.

I’m not sleeping.  I am not nice to be around.  I cannot concentrate…and I ate a whole pizza for breakfast!

I’m not coping.  I need You to show up because I’m drowning in red ink…